Semua Bab TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING: Bab 341 - Bab 350

EMBER’S POVWe drill it.The throat, the knee, the eyes, over and over, his hands correcting, his voice merciless, and slowly — I feel it happen — something in my body starts to understand.The motions stop being separate things I’m remembering and start being one thing I’m doing.My hits land cleaner. My feet stop betraying me. He stops saying “dead” quite so often, which, from Knox, is basically a standing ovation.And that’s when I get the idea.Because he’s still faster than me, still stronger, still winning every exchange, and I am never going to out-muscle this man, not today, not in a year, not ever.But this morning has been one long lesson in exactly one thing, hasn’t it? You don’t fight fair. You find the thing that breaks.And I spent this whole morning cataloguing the one weakness the Lycan King has that no amount of muscle can armour.Me.So the next time he steps in to correct my stance, the next time he says “drop your shoulder, you’re carrying tension in your—” I let m

EMBER’S POVThen I drag myself up and into a long hot shower that turns my abused muscles from screaming to merely complaining, and I dress in soft clothes, and I feel almost human, right up until I realise I left my phone down in the training room.On the bench, where I set it before Knox dragged me onto the mat. It’s been sitting down there for hours.So I pad back down through the quiet house, still-damp hair cool on my neck, toward the sub-level stairs — and the house at this hour is dim and hushed and half-lit, everyone about their morning business elsewhere, and I’m not thinking about anything except the phone, until I turn the corner toward the lower hall and I see her.Marjorie.At the far end of the corridor, near the service passage that runs down toward the east wing, moving fast — and hooded, a dark shawl pulled up over her head, which I have never once seen her wear.And there’s something in her arms, a bundle, no, not a bundle, an arm, a pale limp arm hanging loose from

EMBER’S POV“—all I’m saying,” Hale is murmuring, in that soft syrupy voice that crawls up the back of my neck, “is that the poor thing’s been thrown headfirst into a world she wasn’t raised for, with no preparation at all. It can’t be easy. A little help never hurt anyone.” She turns as I come up, and her face blooms with that bright birdlike warmth that dies somewhere south of her eyes. “Ember! Speak of the darling. We were just talking about you.”“Were you,” I say, stopping a careful arm’s length back. “That’s never good.”“Don’t be like that.” She presses a hand to her chest, wounded. “I was singing your praises. Wasn’t I singing her praises, Knox?”“She was,” Knox says, dryly.“I was watching your lesson this morning,” Hale goes on, undeterred, warm as fresh bread. “From the gallery. It was wonderful. He’s a marvellous teacher, our Knox, all that lovely brute discipline. But.” She tilts her head, birdlike. “There’s only so much a girl learns fighting the man who’s madly in love

EMBER’S POVBecause she said it out loud.The exact thing sitting on my chest like a stone — Rayana upstairs, drowning by the hour — and she said it smugly, dangled it like a worm on a hook over a woman she’s just put on the floor four times, and every ounce of grief and terror and fury I’ve been swallowing since I watched Rayana smile goodbye comes roaring straight up my spine—“Never,” I snarl, and I come up off that mat with everything I have.And I put it all into one clean brutal uppercut, exactly where Knox showed me the soft place under the jaw — and it lands. It actually lands.Hale’s head snaps back, and she staggers, a real stagger, and for one bright vicious second I feel incredible.“Ember.” Knox is off the wall. “That’s enough. Both of you—”But we’re locked.We are completely, totally locked. Hale rights herself and touches her jaw with two fingers and laughs, delighted, genuinely delighted, and comes at me — and I meet her. And we go.Her all draft and misdirection and

EMBER’S POVThat gets his attention. He glances over.“You should be resting.”“I’ve been resting for six hours. I’ve rested enough to last me into the next life.”I sit up slowly and let the blanket slide down to pool at my hips. I watch his eyes catch on it, then darken by degrees as he realises I’m no longer wearing what I had on when he left.Just this.A slip of nothing. Sheer, pale, cut so low it barely contains my breasts, the hem skimming high on my thighs. The kind of thing that was never meant to be worn for long.“I found a little surprise tucked into my things today,” I murmur, lifting the small twist of paper between two fingers. “Hidden in the apothecary bag the Pennys gave me. It came with a note: The secret to an exciting relationship.” I trace my thumb over the edge of the paper, letting my mouth curve into a slow smile. “Apparently, it’s a very rare herb. Meant for a very, very long night.”Knox has gone perfectly still. Shirt half-unbuttoned, chest rising a little f